Floating across the news tracker a couple of days ago was an article from the Record-Courier about proposed legislation to make abortion illegal without paternal consent</a>.

This is one of the stealthiest, sneakiest pieces of unworkable legislation I've seen for a while, and frankly, it smells. The requirements that are proposed would effectively ensure that almost no abortions ever get performed. It's incredibly discriminatory - a claim to not know the father doesn't cut it. The woman would be required to submit a list of "possible" fathers, and submit to pre-natal paternity testing to match the fetus' DNA against the short-list.

It also places a totally unreasonable burden of proof on rape victims - they have to prove their pregnancy is as a result of rape or incest, via police report. And unless said victim is otherwise a nun, there's always the possibility that the pregnancy occurred another way - and we're back to the paternity test idea again.

All in all, this legislation seems designed to bog down a woman's request for abortion in unreasonable, humiliating paperwork, possibly delaying any decision until after a cut-off date has been passed. (Does anyone know Ohio's stance on second trimester abortions?) This is being offered up as a "compromise" to Rep. Tom Brinkman's proposed ban on all abortion, but it seems to be a ban-by-stealth. And that makes me wonder about possible Dominionist agendas here.

The sponsoring Rep is John Adams. Do we know anything about him or his backers/favourite lobby groups??